The above quotation comes forth from our only four-term President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. What is basically meant by this insightful saying is that those that desire to simply lead an easy life, and to thereby never be challenged meaningfully in any material way, are not ever going to be able to acquire the necessary skills, to thereby successfully deal with, if so comes, the turmoil and vicissitudes of life -- for they have not obtained those skills so needed in order to effectively do so. Further to the point, those that are content, to never venture forth, because they are comfortable where they are at; will be ill-prepared to handle the storms of life, when they so come.
We are meant to be here on this good earth, in order to achieve something of note; and those that talk about how they “always win,” and how they “never lose,” are always those that have not been truly tested; for only in the dusty and clamorous arena of life, in which, there is something at stake for all of those so involved, in which, winning and losing, has real consequences, will we so develop the wherewithal to become that which will permit us to make our legitimate good mark in this world.
So too, those that have never known defeat or disappointment, are thus incapable of therefore developing the empathy, so needed, to understand what life so represents, for the vast majority of us. Each of us, needs to have dealt with those circumstances in which we have been humbled, vanquished, or defeated on at least, a temporary level or in a moment of time; in which we subsequently thereby determine to do what so needs to be done to be better prepared to be victorious in the future, when that opportunity so arises for us, again. It is, in the overcoming of that which seems impossible or of great difficulty, that great character is created; for only in the cauldrons of the hottest fire, does the strongest steel come forth.
We should note, that the thing about the ocean is not only how vast it is, but also how we so find that unexpected or unanticipated storms can rise up, with little or no notice, and those then that have developed the skillset to handle such a storm will find that when that storm is vanquished and thereby so passes (and they all do eventually pass) that because of their skill that they are thus able to enjoy the return of the smoothness and rhythm of the sea, when such returns to its norm.
So then, when everything goes our way, we have a tendency to become complacent; and when everything goes against us, we have a tendency to become discontented or worse. For most of us, though, life is a mixture of both; of which, the point of our existence is to do our good part, to break through the barriers that are precluding us from fulfilling our fair destination; and the best way to get to where we need to get to, is to have developed the requisite character, so tested through adversity and our overcoming of such, so that in our final test, we will successfully slay the dragon that stands menacingly in the way of the treasure that we have always been yearning for, and is ours for the taking.